Citizens from across Europe have put their minds together to come up with 23 recommendations on how EU member states could reduce food waste, a number of which focus on farmers and primary producers.
The Citizens’ Panel on Food Waste brought 150 people from across EU member states together to discuss and develop strategies that countries could implement to cut down on the 57 million tonnes of food waste that are generated in the union each year.
While each EU citizen wastes about 127kg of food annually, there are approximately 36 million people in the world who cannot afford a quality meal every second day, according to Eurostat.
55% of this waste is generated by households, but primary producers and retailers are also significant contributors, which a number of the 23 recommendations presented to the European Commission on Sunday (February 12) acknowledged.
Supporting farmers to reduce food waste
The first recommendation to be presented to the commission in Brussels was ‘The closer the farmer, the happier the consumer’.
It called on the EU to introduce policies which would encourage food retailers to procure stock from the closest producer possible.
This would reduce the need for retailers to over-order as produce would be coming from close by, and stocks could be quickly replenished when required.
“The EU should investigate and develop incentives that motivate the retailers to follow these recommendations,” it stated.
The practice of discarding ‘ugly’ or ‘wrong-shaped’ foods was also highlighted by the citizens at the panel, who recommended that the EU investigates how much food waste is generated when retailers reject this stock.
This was also touched on in recommendation 16, ‘Broaden the definition of food waste’, which stated that unharvested food should be included in Europe’s definition of food waste and that farmers need to be able to commercialise “less than perfect, but still edible products”.
It suggested that each country’s department of agriculture implement a system to encourage farmers to erect signs stating that their unharvested food may be harvested by private householders or non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
The provision of tax reliefs or subsidies to farmers to urge them to reduce food waste was also suggested in recommendation two, ‘Taste of Home’.
Large quantities of food can often be left unharvested due to poor market conditions, leaving the produce with a low net worth, or a lack of resources to carry out a full harvest.
The recommendation proposed several initiatives to combat these challenges and ultimately help to reduce food waste.
These included support to find new markets for local farmers where they will be protected from unfair trading practices by wholesalers and retailers.
It also suggested supporting associations such as food banks, which aid local farmers in handling food waste issues.
Support for groups that organise and redistribute surplus food was a common theme throughout the entire panel, with many of the 23 recommendations calling on the EU to provide financial aid for their work.
“We recommend that food banks and redistributors in general should be financially supported by governments through a structural scheme, common across Europe, instead of primarily working by private donations.
“We recommend [establishing] a platform that connects various apps that already exist, retailers and food banks, that is user-friendly and efficient,” stated recommendation three.
Food waste legislation
In 2015, EU member states committed to halving the amount of food waste they produce per capita by 2030, however progress on this goal has been slow, prompting the commission’s decision to bring forward legislation on the matter.
In June, it will propose legislation that would set legally binding food waste reduction targets, which all member states must comply with. The commission formulated the Citizens’ Panel on Food Waste ahead of this, to try and involve people in the policy-making process.
The recommendations presented by the panel were voted on by participants, with all passing. However, at a press briefing in Brussels, commission officials confirmed to Agriland that none of the proposals will be included in the legislation.
“The legislation will not be in the format of a list of measures that must be taken.
“It will state a target that must be met by 2030, and it is up to the member state to decide how they will meet that.
“However, these recommendations will be included as an annex to the legislation, and they will be extremely useful during the implementation process,” they stated.